He smiled—wonderfully gently. There wasn’t the least offense in it, although there wasn’t any credulity either.
“I always aim to prove myself a man’s friend—or a woman’s,” he said, “before expecting to be trusted out of sight. I dare say that’s your code too?”
“If ever Ali Higg catches you with that seal—”
“He won’t catch me, Jael; he won’t catch me. But you shall have it back, and the money shan’t be touched, if you play straight.”
She shrugged her shoulders petulantly, admitting defeat but resenting it. There came a time, months later, when she understood Grim’s peculiar altruism and respected it, but she was a long way just then from admiring him.
“You force me,” she said. “Name your terms.”
“Well, then, suppose we speak of Ali Higg to begin with. Is his temper uneven? Is there any way to catch him in a specially good humor?”
“He’s the most even-tempered man I know,” she laughed. “He’s always in a rage.”
“So much the easier for us,” Grim answered. “That kind always make mistakes. He must have counted on your brains exclusively to keep him on top; and now your brains are in my pocket, so to speak. How’s his health? Boils? Indigestion?”
She nodded.
“Ah! Most angry men have indigestion. Dislikes European doctors, I dare say? Thought so; most fanatical Moslems do that. But an Indian hakim? Now, many an Indian hakim knows how to relieve indigestion—in between the bouts of rage. D’you suppose he’d entertain a hakim?”
She nodded again.
“Well, we’ll fix it so a hakim can relieve his boils and indigestion. But let you and me understand each other first, Jael. I can be a mean man when I must, but I’ll always take a heap of trouble to find a white man’s way of accomplishing the same purpose. I can act mean toward you —sheer plug-ugly if you force my hand—but I’d sooner not; and I’d just as lief help you as hinder you, provided you don’t upset what I’m seeking to build.”
She laughed again, and not so bitterly.
“You’re on the wrong side of the wall to build much,” she answered. “You should come over into our camp. You’re so like Ali Higg in certain lights and in some of your gestures, and so unlike him in other things, that if you came across the Jordan for good I think you could show us something.”
Her eyes said far more than her lips did. She was studying him from a new angle—a thoughtful, speculative angle that vaguely excited her.
“What I mean is just this,” he said; “that you and I had better decide to be real friends, and not half-open enemies, each looking for a chance to spoil the other’s game. There are men in this camp who’ll tell you that I keep my word. I’m willing to pledge it not to hurt you or Ali Higg, provided you pledge yours to be equally friendly and to help me in taming Ali Higg so’s he’ll be useful and not just an ordinary trouble-maker.”
“Would you accept my word?” she asked him—ready to consider him fool or liar, according to how he answered.
“I’ll accept it, Jael. Sure. For you’ll have to give it, and it’s all you’ve got to trade with. And I’ll watch you just about twice as carefully as examiners watch the bank directors of New York State.
“Knowing you’re watched, like them you’re going to be too proud to cheat; and after you’ve found how it pays to play straight with me you’re going almost to enjoy being watched for the sake of the advertisement.”
Her face did not soften in the least; but it changed expression, like a woman buyer’s who has decided to make a purchase but has not done bargaining.
“I think I’m going to like you,” she said. “Of course, you’re a liar, like all men, but you’ve a finer touch than most.”
At that point Ali Baba made his first contribution to the argument. The old man did not know much English, but there are certain words—such as liar, cheat, swine, thief, and the list of oaths—that find their way like water to the common level and are known from Spitzbergen to the Horn.
“He is no liar!” he exclaimed in Arabic. “A cunning man with the brain of three, who can use the truth for his own ends! A keeper of secrets! An upsetter of plans! But he is no liar, and I will not hear him called one by a woman! Peace, thou fool! It is written that a woman’s tongue is worse than water dripping through a roof!”
It is manners in that country to sit silent while an old man speaks, and even Jael Higg did not offer to rebuke him for the interruption. When he had quite finished Grim took up the argument again.
“Now let’s know where we stand. Are you and I to be friends, Jael?”
She nodded.
“I’m no half-way adventurer. I’ll make your fortune,” she said, “if you’ll come the whole way with me, and stay this side of Jordan.”
He shook his head and smiled back at her.
“You’ve your work cut out to keep Ali Higg off the rocks, Jael.”
“There’s no room for two of you,” she answered darkly.
“I guess not.”
She looked hard at me, and back from me to Grim. I don’t know yet whether she was setting a trap for us or really in earnest about what she said next. Grim thinks she was drawing a bow at a venture.
“Is this the hakim? One of the two respectable persons you have with you? Hm! Respectability is a mask—often a safe mask, often an offensive one, always a lie. All really dangerous criminals are respectable people.
“And a hakim, eh? An Indian physician? I have heard of Indian physicians being poisoners—although, of course, they’re respectable people and give the poison by mistake! Now if he should go to Ali Higg and poison him, while pretending to cure boils and indigestion—”
“But he won’t,” said Grim, “so why suppose?”
“Of course he won’t, unless you tell him to!” she snapped.
“I dare say he’s as much in your power as I am. But suppose you tell him to—”
“I won’t, Jael.”
“Now don’t you be a fool, James Grim! You can’t deceive me into thinking you’re above such things. That haughty attitude is British, not American; you’ve been defiled by contact with them. Come out into the open like an unhypocritical American. Talk business.
“I’ve tried to make a man of Ali Higg, but he’s only an animal after all. The best I can ever do with him will be failure compared to what I could make of you, James Grim. You look enough like him to make it possible to substitute you with care. Go ahead and send your hakim.”
Grim smiled with perfect good humor, but a blind man could not have mistaken his refusal.
“Oh, you’re all hypocrites, you men—Americans, English, French —you’re all alike; glad to see a man die, if he’s a nuisance, but afraid to admit you’d a hand in it. But you needn’t fear. You can send your hakim uninstructed. He’s an Indian, isn’t he? Well, Ali Higg is sure to insult him to the very marrow of his bones, and you can safely leave Indian revengefulness to do the rest.”
Grim shook his head.
“He’d be too afraid he might meet me some day. He knows I’d not stand for it. No, Jael; I invited you to talk sense. You’ve got to make shift with Ali Higg ‘as is’. If you don’t like it say so now and I’ll tell off three or four of my thieves to escort you over the border into British